The odds and the End
by hercat
Summary: When Naruto confuses the regular summoning jutsu with the one to summon death, the consequences will be far reaching and unforgettable. Story is complete. Basic familiarity with the Narutoverse essential.
1. Chapter 1

Title: the odds and the end.

Summery: When Naruto confuses the regular summoning jutsu with the one to summon death, the consequences will be far reaching and unforgettable. Even with therapy.

AN: usually when I write a story, there are some scenes in my head and the rest of the work is devoted to getting to those scenes. In this case, I just started typing to see where things went. I put particular emphasis on trying to use vocabulary matching each character's character. Comments are appreciated.

* * *

When Naruto got the scroll deep into the woods, where he was sure he wouldn't be distracted the first thing he did was open it. There was some sort of zapping noise when he did which made everything go tingly, then a poof of purple dust that made his eyes water something fierce. Nothing bad happened though, so he started reading.

The first jutsu was some type of clone which sucked. It had to be a special though, or it wouldn't be on this super-important-secret-Hokage-only scroll. Unless this was actually a scroll of the usual crappy academy stuff, just kept in the Hokage's office for the test. Boy, was that a sucky thought.

Naruto unrolled the whole scroll, which promptly rolled up again. He unrolled it again, it rolled back up again. Dammit, reading sucked. With a sigh of frustration, he started gathering up rocks and sticks and using them to hold the stupid thing down. There was quite a lot of it, and it was pretty obvious it wasn't academy stuff. They probably hadn't taught this much in his whole time there. You could have twenty Narutos sleeping on the thing end to end without crowding, and it wasn't like the writing was super large either.

It was a good thing he hadn't taken it back to his apartment, he'd have had to nail it to the ceiling and walls and even if he made a full loop there probably wasn't even room. It didn't take him long to realise that the jutsu got tougher as you went along the scroll. Naruto couldn't have said if they got _better_, 'cause the whole reading thing kind of sucked. But the start ones had the hand seals listed, and the middle ones had no hand seals, and then the ones at the far end had those picture-and-kanji things that he'd seen on the really neat explosive tags that the old man had shown him once.

So naturally, Naruto started at the last one.

His reading skills weren't that great (he could admit that here, to himself, in private) but he could read bits of it. Like 'Extremely dangerous' and 'Lethal' and 'Only the most powerful of shinobi' (that was his favourite). He skipped over the bits he didn't understand, and skipped back to read the name of his soon to be most-awesome jutsu.

The summoning Jutsu.

Oddly enough for something so super-awesome-secret, Iruka-sensei had mentioned it. It had caught Naruto's attention, because it was a way of having someone who would help you fight whenever you wanted. Naruto wasn't stupid enough to think there was anyone in his class who liked him. For some reason everyone in this whole damn village (except the old man) hated his guts. For some reason, no one from outside the village did. But then, it wasn't people from outside the village he'd be on a team with. He seriously doubted there was anyone in the whole academy who'd stick their neck out for him, the best he could realistically hope for was indifference. So having an animal who'd fight with him and maybe even be his friend was just a slice of awesome. And if it was on the scroll, it had to be a super-awesome animal. Maybe a dragon? Boy, would one of those show Sasuke-bastard who was best. He wouldn't be so proud of his stupid firebreath if Naruto had a summon who could roast him like a duck.

Naruto spent several moments contemplating this happy event oblivious to several facts. One fact was that the last seal on the scroll was in fact the master version of the Death God's contract with the Fourth Hokage, the complete version to support the abbreviated one on his body. Tampering with it would be a Very Bad Idea.

Another more important fact was that in all his daydreaming about having a summons, he'd missed one of the points of Iruka's class on Shinobi contracts – that without signing the contract, there could be no summons.

The consequences of this would be far-reaching and quite memorable for a number of individuals.

* * *

AN: Based on Naruto's character as we see him in the series, and given that the scroll of seals started with what Naruto saw as a basic jutsu and got more complicated, what on earth makes people think he would start at the _easy_ end?


	2. Chapter 2

When Naruto first summoned successfully by running through the seals listed on the scroll and slapping his hands onto the master seal with a burst of chakra (an action that would have given the Third Hokage, god of shinobi, a full out heart attack if he'd seen it) it felt a little like someone had shoved an ice cold arm into his stomach and pulled the ground back through.

When the universe sorted itself out again, he was lying on his back with a ratty old hat sitting on his bare stomach. Naruto absently noted that there was a circular hole cut into his awesome orange jacket, but there were more important things to deal with. Like the fact that the hat was talking to him.

He sighed and sat up, looking around in vain for the dragon he'd been hoping for. Or even any other animal would be okay. The hat was wiggling around in his hands and still talking to him, or making noises anyway – he couldn't understand it. It looked like he'd messed up again. Maybe he'd mixed the animal into his jacket and gotten half and half? Well, no one ever got to Hokage by giving up. With a determined nod he jammed the hat on his head and went back to the scroll. He'd just try it again until it worked right. He wouldn't give Iruka any excuse to fail him again, so it had to be perfect.

Focused on his determination to pound the details into his brain and learn the jutsu he was considerably surprised when someone started talking to him.

"Well, this isn't quite how I was expecting to spend my evening"

Naruto jerked his head around wildly. Even if he had a chance to pass, it was only a chance and he knew how much people loved to sabotage him. Was somebody going to steal the scroll off him and tell him he'd failed?

"Well, it wouldn't be me in any case. Good grief, how do you live in here, there's no organization at all."

"No what?" asked Naruto. He scanned the trees carefully, but couldn't see anyone. Not that that meant anything.

"Organization. Structure. Most minds have a 'thought centre' for lack of a better word. You don't, which generally means…oh, how horrible."

"What?" asked Naruto. The person didn't sound mean, although some of the villagers liked to try to trick him. There was no answer. "Hello?"

"Do you realize you have a demon inside you? No, of course not, or there'd be something in here about it…" Naruto snorted and turned back to the scroll. That was way more important than another person else calling him a demon. "No, I'm not saying that you are a demon, just that you've got one in you. It's right…ooops"

Naruto was abruptly standing in a sewer. He knew that's what it was because he'd tried hiding in them once. It had been stinky and damp and he'd nearly drowned when he fell in. He'd learned to find better hiding places.

"I was wondering what that bit did". There was a guy beside Naruto in the sewer. He was wearing a pointy hat like the one Naruto had, and a long black dress which was soaking up the water around his ankles. He was slowly running his hands over his dress, and over his face too, like a person who was trying to find where the glitter was stuck. He suddenly blinked and turned towards Naruto.

"Hello!" he said in a cheerful voice. "Isn't this lovely" He appeared to be serious.

"It's a sewer" said Naruto bluntly.

"It's a representation of your interpretation of your own mental structures." Naruto stared at him blankly. "This sewer is what your mind thinks it looks like."

Naruto looked around disbelievingly. The ceiling dripped something nasty on him. While Naruto would have loved to tell the guy off, he had a sinking feeling the guy was right.

"My name is Alistair by the way. Would you like to see the demon? It's right over there." He pointed towards what Naruto had taken to be columns of stone or pipes. He walked towards them slowly. "I shouldn't get too close to the bars" called Arasuta-san as he got closer. He stopped and saw in the darkness through the gap a massive red eye open slowly. The eye was as big as Naruto and seemed to spill a reeking contaminated sense of evil into the room. It was worse than the smell, and that was saying something.

"What the hell is that?" asked Naruto stumbling back.

"**HELL INDEED YOU MISERABLE INSECT I AM THE GREAT LORD OF THE DEMONS CONQUEROR OF THE DAMMED AND YOUR MASTER CRAWL BEFORE YOUR GOD WORM"**

Naruto stared at the demon fox towering over him. Its tails fanned out behind it, striking sparks from the stone wall. The air felt like it was trying to crush him, pressing him downwards, towards the scum, making him crawl…

"No."

"**YOU DARE**"

"Shut up you stinky fox, I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and you're not the boss of me!" The crushing atmosphere vanished.

"Very impressive" said Arasuta-san. "The important thing to remember is that this is your mind, and you can control everything here as long as you concentrate. It's not about power, it's about willpower." He became more serious "Naruto, no matter what, you must never listen to that thing. Never trust it, never bargain with it, never listen to it if you can help it. The only thing keeping that monster locked up is you. You are the only one who can protect the world from that beast. That is the most important job you'll ever have in your life, and all the power you need to do it is up here." He tapped Naruto's forehead.

"So are you some super-thinky part of my brain then?" asked Naruto, beyond confused by this whole day.

"No, I'm the hat." Naruto stared at him. "The one you put on?" Naruto stared at Arasuta-san's pointy hat. "The one which you summoned, you do remember that I hope. Getting grabbed by a death god and dragged here was a bit of a shock, let me tell you."

"…you don't look like a hat" said Naruto finally. Arasuta-san sighed.

"I used to be a person. I put myself inside the hat."

"On purpose?" asked Naruto, who had spent one very uncomfortable class at the academy being used as a desk, and couldn't imagine doing that on a permanent basis. Maybe a hat was better?

"The school needed me. Nobody else did. It was a simple choice."

"If someone is precious to you, you have to do everything to save them." Naruto said firmly. The Third had drummed that into his head, and become his first precious person.

"Yes, that's it exactly." Said Arasuta-san with a smile. "Now, shall we do something about the décor in here?"

* * *

AN: Giant demon foxes don't use punctuation.


	3. Chapter 3

Twenty minutes later with Arasuta-san's help, Naruto had the whole scroll of seals memorized. He was slowly going back over the jutsu (this time starting from the easy end) with Arasuta-san helping with the kanji. Even if Naruto couldn't read most of them, he'd still seen them at some point or another, so Arasuta-san was making it so that Naruto could understand them too. Watching the characters change from squiggly squares into words, sentences, instructions was awesome. Naruto still didn't understand all of the instructions, but he figured as long as he got enough to make it work he could ask Iruka about the rest of the stuff later. Iruka might not like him much, but he always answered Naruto's questions. And from what Naruto could tell, he'd always been honest about it too. Arasuta was making a list of all the stuff people had told him which didn't seem to be true or make sense. It was a really long list. He'd also made Naruto promise to re-read all the academy textbooks as soon as he got a chance.

"Kage bunshin no jutsu!" a great deal of smoke appeared, but no clones. So Naruto tried again, and again, and again. He'd lost track of how many times he'd tried, and was starting to get exhausted.

"Naruto, how many are you trying to do?" Arasuta asked suddenly.

"I dunno, a bunch?"

"Well, you're using an awful lot of energy, and none of it is going where you want."

"I just have to keep trying! Uzumaki Naruto is no quitter dattebayo!"

"Stupidity is repeating the same action and expecting different results" Naruto felt a pang at that. Was his new friend calling him stupid? "So try something different."

"Different?" Naruto squatted down to consider this. He was forming the seals, and pushing his chakra through them. Maybe he should just push it out without the seals? He nodded sharply. "Kage Bunshin No Jutsu" there was a larger puff of smoke and the clearing filled with Naruto. Unfortunately, they were all in pieces. There were hands sticking out of the ground, legs sticking out of the trees. "Eeeww" said Naruto. He took a step backwards and tripped as one of the hands grabbed his leg. There was an eyeball on a bush near the end of his nose. It blinked at him. "Okay, so kind of creepy, and maybe useful for spying, but still not right dammit." He poked the eyeball. It vanished in a puff of smoke and he clapped a hand over his eye as he felt the sudden impression of poking himself in the eye. "Dammit, stupid memory thing."

"You're getting closer." Naruto huffed and considered what to do different. Maybe lumps of chakra instead of a wave?

In the end it turned out that the way to get things to work was not to try – he just had to figure out how many Naruto he wanted and do the seals, the jutsu took care of the rest. It really pissed him off when he thought of all the time he'd spent trying to get the old version of bunshin working. The other parts of it, kage shuriken and so on, down at the bottom were just as easy. If someone had just told him how to do things this way he could've passed the exam with no problem. As a result, he was kind of pissed off when Iruka-sensei jumped into the clearing.

"FOUND YOU!" he yelled, pointing at Naruto.

"I ALREADY FINISHED" yelled Naruto back. Nobody beat him at being loud.

"Finished what" asked Iruka sensei

"A jutsu off the scroll, of course. Like Mizuki-sensei said. Now I can pass." Iruka-sensei was staring at him, mouth open. Didn't he think Naruto was any good? That hurt a bit.

"You…wait, what did Mizuki-sensei tell you?" demanded Iruka-sensei.

"Naruto, I think something is wrong" whispered Arasuta-san in his head. "Perhaps this Mizuki fellow just wanted you to steal the scroll so you'd get in trouble?" Naruto's heart sunk at that. He knew the old guy liked him, but if this really wasn't part of the test…you could get executed for that sort of thing. And there were enough people on the council who hated him – the old man couldn't protect him from that sort of screw-up and it's not like they'd listen to him about Mizuki-sensei. Naruto was surprised out of his worries when Iruka-sensei pushed him over. Which didn't make any sense either, cause if Iruka sensei wanted him dead he'd just do it, and why were there kunai sticking out of him…

"Naruto, run" said Arasuta-san in his head. Iruka-sensei was talking with Mizuki-sensei, who was up a tree, in an angry tone of voice. Had Mizuki-sensei thrown kunai at Iruka-sensei? Why? They liked each other. They were talking about betrayal and power and the scroll, and Iruka-sensei was telling him to run. But the scroll was laid out there, open for anyone and if things were wrong then it was Naruto's responsibility to protect it. People died for secrets like that, killed for them too. Naruto had been the one to borrow the scroll so he had to be the one to give it back to the old man. He nodded firmly to himself and tuned back into the conversation just in time to notice a tingly feeling and both teachers staring at him.

"…what? Ah, sorry, I wasn't paying attention" Iruka-sensei looked relieved to hear that, but boy did Mizuki-sensei look pissed.

"You miserable little brat" he roared and charged forwards pulling a big-ass shuriken out from his jacket. Then Iruka-sensei threw Naruto at Mizuki. Then somehow Naruto was across the clearing, and Iruka-sensei and Mizuki were duking it out. _was that kawarimi? That felt totally different from how I thought it would_. Naruto quickly moved over to stand between the scroll and the fight, not particularly sure that he trusted either of those two. He changed his mind and started to roll up the scroll, kicking the rocks away and taking at least one unfortunate caterpillar with it.

"At least make a duplicate and have it protect you" yelled the hat. He sounded kind of freaked out, and was wrapped around Naruto's head tight enough to make the goggles dig in. Naruto supposed it would be pretty freaky to be in a fight without any hands. Still it was a good suggestion, and he made a bunch of clones. After a moment's thought, half of them went running back towards the village to get the old man, and the others helped him roll up the scroll. He had to duck a few times, and a couple clones 'poofed' but he'd just grabbed the scroll and turned to run when Iruka-sensei bowled him over for the second time that day.

He was leaning over Naruto and in pretty rough shape. He was bleeding, and worse, he was crying. Naruto noticed with a sense of shock that he had Mizuki's giant shuriken sticking out of his back. Naruto wondered if he was going to see Iruka-sensei die.

"Naruto, I'm sorry" said Iruka-sensei. "I'm sorry for ignoring your pain, and not treating you the way a true sensei should. I'm sorry for not protecting you better." He screamed as Mizuki roughly pulled the shuriken out of his back and kicked him aside.

Naruto swallowed quietly and wrapped his hands as far as he could get them around the giant scroll. His eyes were stuck on the giant shuriken as Iruka's blood dripped off the point. Mizuki-sensei was saying something but Naruto was ignoring him. Inside his head Arasuta-san said very quietly "Naruto, you have to do something right now" and Naruto felt a surge of anger. He was angry at Mizuki-sensei and at Iruka-sensei and at the whole damn village for treating him like crap and he just wanted Mizuki-sensei to _go away_. His hands ran through the summoning jutsu and he _reached._ And he heard Arasuta-san's voice say 'oh bugger' and then he was gone, and there was something big and furry in front of him and he threw the scroll to a group of clones and there was another group carrying Iruka-sensei and they were running away from the screaming which was very loud right before it cut off.

Naruto had managed to run them even deeper into the forest, and Arasuta had evidently gone back to wherever he came from. As a result there was no one else around when Iruka-sensei woke up. Naruto wasn't quite sure he trusted the guy 100 percent, so the clones with the scroll were a little ways off, and hiding. He wouldn't close his eyes when Iruka-sensei asked, but the guy just smiled sadly and gave him a headband anyway.

"I can't promise that you'll be accepted as a genin today, Naruto, but that headband is my promise to you that I won't turn my back on you again. I'll train you until you get a headband of your own or quit, my word as a ninja."

"Seriously?" That was about a zillion times more help then he'd ever gotten from anyone before.

"Seriously. You and I are a lot alike. I apologize for not seeing that before."

"You already said sorry, so it's okay"

"Ah, I wasn't sure if you were paying attention to that." Naruto huffed at the stupid joke, as Iruka-sensei started to bandage himself up. Zone out for a tiny bit and everybody made fun of you…

* * *

AN: Of all the ways to handle Mizuki's great 'you're a demon' speech, I think ignoring it is the funniest. Which is made even more hilarious by the fact that Naruto already knew.


	4. Chapter 4

"That was a really impressive summons Naruto, how did you get the dog contract?

"Contract?" There was a brief pause.

"Naruto, where exactly did that giant three headed dog come from?"

"Oh, is that what it was? I just did the jutsu hand thingies and sort of pulled the same way as Arasuta-san came from and it went poof. Like this;" Naruto ran through the hand signs as Iruka stared. As soon as he finished, there was a feeling like one rope being cut, and another attached to his stomach. There was a quiet pop and Arasuta flopped down onto his head.

"You…just summoned a hat. But before it was a dog. WHAT THE HELL SORT OF CONTRACT DID YOU SIGN?"

"I dunno, it was at the end of the scroll."

"The end…the end."

"Iruka-sensei, you're looking kind of sick. Should I do something?" Arasuta took this moment to speak up

"And I prefer to be called a thinking cap, if it's the same to you." Iruka stared at Arasuta for a moment before slumping backwards in a faint.

"Oh no, I killed Iruka-sensei."

"I doubt it's quite that bad. Put me on his head, and see if you can finish the bandaging." Iruka-sensei turned out to be fairly floppy, but Naruto had managed to get another layer of bandages around his chest. It was a new and sickening experience for Naruto. His hands were slick with blood, warm as it soaked into his pants before turning cold and sticky. He could smell it, and the sight of the hole in Iruka's back, skin ripped open, and red muscle beneath was making him feel really sick.

"He's awake again" said Alastair.

"And wishing that I'd imagined the whole thing" said Iruka-sensei with a sigh, pulling the hat off and slowly sitting up. "Naruto, you're covered in blood!"

"I…it's not mine." It wasn't until Iruka-sensei took his hand, tacky with drying blood that he realised how hard he was shaking. Iruka wrapped an arm around his shoulders and drew him close. He might have been a warier a few minutes ago, but at this point Naruto leaned against his side, as strange as this felt it was at least a distraction from all the cooling blood.

"Come on, let's get back to the city."

"What about Mizuki-sensei?" Iruka sighed

"If he's dead, he'll be buried as a traitor. If he's alive, he'll be hunted, interrogated and then executed. Besides, neither of us is in any shape to go after him." Iruka started to struggle to his feet, and Naruto helped as much as he could, swearing that he was going to grow twice as tall as sensei.

"He said that if I could steal the scroll and learn a jutsu off it I'd pass. I guess that was a lie too. Dammit, I even got past old man Hokage too."

"I'm not certain that summoning jutsu is right. It's probably a good idea if you don't use it until we talk to Hokage-sama. Who you shouldn't refer to so disrespectfully by the way."

"Hey, he's the guy that was so pervy that sexy Jutsu made him pass out. You just got a nosebleed. I learned a bunch of other stuff off the scroll anyways, see -" Naruto made a pair of shadow clones, one of whom scooped Alastor back onto the head of the original Naruto. The other one used the kage suriken technique to cast a blizzard of throwing stars at one of the clones dispersing it with a puff of smoke.

"Dammit, what the hell did you do that for?" Naruto cursed as he got the brief-lived clone's memories.

"Sorry boss, I just wanted to show Iruka sensei."

"Well, don't do stupid stuff like that anymore, we're going to be real ninja, we can't screw around anymore."

"Sorry boss" said the clone before vanishing in a sad little puff of smoke.

"Wow" said naruto "I think I actually hurt my own feelings" leaning heavily on him Iruka sensei started laughing, despite the fact Naruto could tell it hurt.

Of course, that was the point where the scary ANBU guys with masks showed up.

* * *

AN; there's a Luke Doucet song that begins 'It takes a uniquely fucked up man to break his own heart…'


	5. Chapter 5

"At which point Naruto-kun summoned a giant three headed dog, easily four meters tall, before grabbing myself and the scroll and fleeing with the aid of at least ten shadow clones. We heard it engage Mizuki, and his chakra signature vanished. I thought it was likely he was dead, so I started to do some field aid to slow my bleeding before returning to Konoha. I passed out briefly, at which point Naruto-kun continued the first aid. In addition, Naruto demonstrated his…rather odd summoning jutsu to me, as well as ability with the shadow clone and kage shuriken techniques. Given his composure and quick thinking under pressure, as well as combat use of a bunshin technique, I officially recommend him for promotion to genin status."

"I see" said the Sandime Hokage, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe. "Naruto, do you have anything to add to this?" Naruto looked down and fiddled with the crusty edge of a patch of blood on his pants.

"Yeah. I screwed up. Really bad too. I didn't even think that maybe Mizuki-bastard had given me the test to get me in trouble until Arasuta-san pointed it out." Naruto's stomach churned. "and there's something else too. Something even worse." _What if they decide that they need to kill me to get rid of the demon too? _He shivered remembering what it had been like to look that thing in the eye. _I think I'd do almost anything to get rid of that thing, but I don't want to die. It's selfish, but I don't want to die. But I have to tell the old man. I mean if I'm going to be a ninja, then he's my boss, so I have to tell him. _Naruto looked down at his hands, twisting the edge of his jacket. Right below the neat round hole over his stomach, showing the writing on his skin slowly fading. _I guess that's what that's from. Maybe someone turned the monster into a bunch of squiggly lines and put them on my skin?_

"Not quite Naruto" murmered Alistair inside his head "that's the jail holding it in. And I shouldn't worry too much about telling them. I'll explain why in a moment" Naruto took a deep breath and charged ahead as usual.

"I've got a demon inside of me. I saw it and it's…horrible." He looked up at the wrinkled face of the Hokage and at his teacher. They both looked sort of sad, but not really like they believed him.

"I'm serious, I'm not just making this up."

"Oh, they believe you Naruto" Said Alistair out loud, making the Hokage twitch in shock. "After all, they already knew."

"They…what?"

"That's what your Iruka-sensei and Mizuki were shouting about in the trees."

"But I only found out about it a few minutes before. How long? How long did you know about this?" It was suddenly falling into place like bricks dropping on his head. "Who knows? Everybody right, that's why everyone hates me isn't it. That's why I don't have a family or anyone who cares isn't it." Naruto laughed and it sounded a bit cracked to his own ears. "Was I even a real person to start, or just a box to put the demon in?"

"Naruto, you were indeed born a human baby. I held you briefly myself before the nine-tailed fox was sealed in you."

"How do I know you're even telling me the truth? Are there any other stupid secrets you're keeping? Do you know who my parents were?" He started to laugh again "Or are they some of the people who throw rocks at me? Maybe I see them every day and I don't even know!" Naruto was shouting by this point. He folded over gasping feeling numb with the shock.

"I can tell you this" Alistair spoke up again, his voice rumbling comfortingly through Naruto's head "you were born completely human. Since then, you've gained a trickle of energy from the demon, but it's been purified. You're essentially human, and as long as you don't start pulling demonic energy through the seal deliberately, you'll stay that way."

"That's something I guess. How about you old man, do you have anything to add" The answer he got back would determine how much he trusted the man in the future.

"I do know who your parents were." Naruto made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. "Unfortunately, I cannot tell you."

"WHAT? YOU…AARGH!"

"There were certain agreements made when you were born Naruto. One of them is that you will not be permitted to learn anymore information about who your parents were until you reach chunin rank."

"Shit."

"I can however tell you that they are both deceased, and that they were good people. So far as I'm aware, you don't have any living relatives."

"Shit" said Naruto again. It seemed to fit better than anything else he could have said.

"By the way Naruto" said Iruka-sensei quietly "Only the people over a certain age know about the demon. None of your classmates do, which was done to help you make friends."

"Yeah, well it didn't work so good."

"I know. You can tell anyone you want, the law was set up that way, but no one else can speak of it. It's an executable offense."

"What about my parents? Who knows that?" Naruto abruptly focused on Iruka-sensei. If everyone knew that one, he could probably find out. The Hokage answered

"Myself and two others only. And no, I'm not going to tell you who."

"Dammit."

"Now we need to discuss the information you gained from the forbidden scroll. I'm particularly interested in the rather…odd summoning jutsu you've been using." Alistair quickly started whispering inside Naruto's head

"I may not be able to stay here much longer, so I'll give you some advice. Firstly, Iruka-sensei was being honest with you. I can't read information from a person, but I got a good idea of his personality, and he is as honest as his job allows him to be. In addition I've fixed as much of your reading ability as possible, and left you some information where we first met as well."

"Naruto, how exactly did you get this contract?"

"Huh? Oh, I just did the hand sign thingies and pushed out some chakra. Oh and I put it on the scroll the first time, but after that I could just use it without that."

"You pushed chakra into the scroll? Naruto, this is very important, which part of the scroll did you use?"

"The bit at the end. With all the swirly pictures." There was a quiet thunk as the Hokage dropped his pipe onto the desk scattering embers across it.

"I see" he said not even paying attention to the smouldering papers. "Do you happen to know exactly what contract you made…if this is even a contract."

"You might try asking me." Snapped Alistair. "Why should I know anything, I'm only a 400 year old highly educated magic artifact. Hmf, it's worse than dealing with Phineas. Yes he has a contract, and no he didn't have to sign it because it was already made in his name. If anyone else had tried that stunt they'd be a rotting corpse at this point, but he got lucky."

"What do you mean the contract was already in my name?" asked Naruto "I never signed anything."

"No, but your parents have a right to make contracts for you up to a certain age. You can't just stuff a demon into a baby, the basic law of magic is equivalent exchange. In exchange for agreeing to put up with the spirit of an elemental demon, you get a fraction of its power purified and fed into your body. It's all spelled out in the runes. You made an addendum to the agreement, exchanging portions of your purified demonic energy for, well, me. And that Cerberus."

"I see. Alistair-san, is the contract stable?"

"As a ward-stone."

"Are you absolutely certain?"

"Just in case you missed it the first time I said so, I'm a 400 year artifact at a school for magic. I have experienced this contract from the inside, and let me tell you that having been yanked off my shelf by a death god, dragged through the underworld and back out the other side, I have an excellent idea of how this whole thing was constructed. Yes, it is stable, and given that this is a contract with Death, far more reliable than anything else in this world, except perhaps taxes." The Hokage pondered for a bit, absently snuffing out a bit of paperwork that had started to smoulder slightly.

"You mentioned that you are from a school for magic, could you teach this one of my shinobi? Perhaps Iruka or young Naruto here?"

"I can not teach magic to Naruto, and I will not teach anyone else. Speaking of which, it's time for me to return. I am permanently connected to my school, and staying away for much longer will have some very unpleasant consequences" Alastor's voice quieted and moved to the inside of Naruto's head only "I'm sorry my friend, but I'm going to have to ask you not to summon me again. If you do, there's a good chance it will destroy me. I'm not meant to travel like this." Naruto's heart sunk. It just figured. He finally found someone willing to be his friend, and only got to meet him for one day.

"Don't worry too much. There are others out there bound by the contract, some who will make very good friends and be quite able to spend time here. You'll be fine." Iruka-sensei who'd been quiet for quite a while suddenly spoke up.

"If you don't mind my asking Alistair-san, who or what is the contract with? I mean to say what is the link between you and the dog, and what other…creatures is Naruto-kun likely to summon?"

"Ah, the answer to that is quite interesting. Actually…" Naruto felt the connection between himself and the hat twitch, and disappear at the same moment as the hat vanished in a puff of smoke.

"… heh, oops. I guess he ran out."

* * *

AN: I spent a lot of time considering what sort of contract I should make this. Then I decided, why should I deprive everyone of the fun of guessing?


	6. Chapter 6

Over the next hour, while a medic nin patched up Iruka-sensei, Naruto summoned until he thought he was going to hurl. He got a horse made out of bones that kept chewing his hair, a metal scorpion thing that had attacked the Hokage and gotten pinned to the desk by one of the ANBU, and a glowy floaty ball thing that drifted around the office. It turned out that whatever he was thinking had a big effect on what he got. Getting angry or upset got violent things, feeling calm or happy got weird things. None of them seemed particularly useful. The Hokage had even had Naruto try summoning some dead people, but they'd gotten these little blue mini-ninja who had stolen all of the booze and busted the medic nin's ankle. Naruto was keeping those guys in mind for the next time there was a real fight.

Eventually though, everything had calmed down, and the medic had finished patching up Iruka sensei. He'd given Naruto a glare and left, which left him even more confused than usual. Sure, he hated the damn demon too, but it wasn't like attacking him was going to do anything, he was pretty sure the bastard didn't even know what was going on outside the sewer, or care. Weren't ninja supposed to be all sneaky? What was the point of acting all angry with him? It wasn't like they were going to get anything out of it. Maybe it was some sort of group thing, like everybody was doing it? Except the old man, who was the boss of everyone. Shouldn't they follow him? Maybe the guy thought that he'd been the one to carve up Iruka sensei? He sure did have a lot of blood over him, and it was starting to itch. Oh, maybe he was annoyed about Naruto summoning the blue guys who'd busted his ankle. Still, it was pretty awesome the way that he'd just made his hands go all glowy and fixed stuff up. That was definitely on the list of things to learn.

His train of thought was broken when the Hokage took one last mournful look at his empty liquor cabinet and started talking about Naruto's graduation.

"Well Naruto, while this is likely the oddest exam in the entire history of the village, I think the results are quite conclusive."

"…Is that good?"

"Hmm, while your judgement was certainly less than ideal on a number of points, you have undeniably demonstrated a high level of adaptation and jutsu skills." Naruto held his breath. "It is my considered judgement that you are worthy of the rank of Genin. Come back tomorrow at nine to fill out the forms."

"YES! YES! OH YEAH!" The Hokage gave him a few moments to celebrate and get congratulated by Iruka before continuing.

"_However_, there are certain issues which should not be swept under the table."

"You want me to clean your office?"

"Ahem, no, I simply mean that your new summoning jutsu and some of the issues that have come up tonight necessitate a level of adult involvement in your life which has been absent until now."

"This is going to be something sucky, isn't it?"

"I certainly hope not. Iruka, I'm officially assigning you as Naruto's mentor. You'll be exempt from the standard interference restrictions. I'd like you to spend at least an hour a day together, responsibilities permitting. Naruto, this is to ensure you have someone you can talk to about this discussion, given that most of it will be classified. Do not discuss anything that happened today without specific permission from Iruka. Do you understand?"

"Let me guess, this is so that in case I go nuts, you'll see it coming." The Hokage sighed.

"That's certainly what I'm going to tell the council. Personally, I just want someone who can keep you from seeing how useful those miserable blue rats will be for pranks."

"Hah! That's an awesome idea old man. Jeez, I didn't even think about that…" Iruka sensei let out a huff of amusement.

"Naruto, now you're a genin, you'll have better things to do with your time. And if you don't I can certainly come up with them. There are all sorts of drills that would be useful for you, not to mention time consuming." Naruto froze eyes wide.

"Wait, this means you're going to _teach_ me stuff?"

"Well, I've been trying for over a year now, but yes, I'll continue. Mostly it'll be me assigning some skill for you to practice, I won't have time to babysit you, and by now you should be old enough to work on your own."

"That's Awesome!"

"I'm sure you'll feel differently after we get started."

"And on the topic of your summons" started the Hokage "You may use them as you wish, not that I imagine I could stop you there, but you are not to discuss what they are or where this skill came from under any circumstances, is this clear."

"Yep!"

"So far as anyone else is concerned, the test was real, and done with my full approval. The scroll you took was made for this test, with the kage bunshin and shuriken techniques on it and _nothing else_. Mizuki sensei took advantage of the test to stage his own treacherous break in, and was killed in the attempt. Again, you are not to discuss the source of your summons in any fashion."

"Don't worry, old man, You've got my word on it. Besides, it's not like anyone really wants to know about me anyway. I'll bet you five bowls of ramen that no-one even asks how I passed when I show up for the team meetings."

"I'll take that bet Naruto, and we can settle up after you've met your genin teacher. In the mean time, I have a great deal of paperwork to sort out, and you have some laundry to take care of." Naruto stood up from the chair with a sticky noise.

"You're not joking, this is gross"

"The glamourous life of a ninja Naruto-kun" said Iruka-sensei with a smile, slapping him on the back. "Don't forget to go to the admin building tomorrow for your photo, 9 am sharp."

"Don't worry Iruka-sensei, I'm definitely going to remember that."

* * *

The next morning the Third hokage looked up as Iruka came into the room.

"Ah, hokage sama, Naruto filed his registration papers this morning, I thought I'd show you a copy." The older man slowly raised an eyebrow and ventured

"I'm not going to like this am I?"

"Well, he's certainly got style." Iruka handed over the photograph and watched the Hokage's eyebrow twitch. "There's a certain amount of tactical sense too, a good ninja conceals their tracks." The third glared down at the photo; Naruto painted blue with black swirls. Just like those miniature bastards that had stolen his booze. "Have him redo it." With a laugh Iruka sensei headed back out the door. In his office the Hokage looked at the photo for a moment before sliding it into a special folder. _If nothing else, it may be good blackmail material one day. _He tried to picture threatening a grown Naruto with showing it to the man's children. All he could picture was the adult Naruto happily grabbing the picture and passing it around. To a half-dozen mini-Narutos. _I should look into finding a replacement again._

_

* * *

_

"Neh Iruka-sensei, how'd it go?" Naruto bounced around him as the Chunin exited the tower.

"No luck I'm afraid, I filed it with the normal photo."

"EHH! But that's so boring"

"Ah well, that's bureaucracy for you. No sense of humour. Better get used to it, if you want to be Hokage, you'll be dealing with that sort of thing all the time. Piles of forms up to your eyebrows."

"Ah, no problem, I'll just use clones."

"You do realise that when they vanish, you'll get all the memories back, right?"

"Yeah, the eyeball thing. Is there anyway you can stop that? I mean if your clone got smooshed in a really gross way, or spends the whole day staring at a wall, can you not get the memory back?"

"I don't know" said Iruka absently, sorting through a folder as they walked "you'll have to experiment with it."

Several hours later Iruka would remember what he'd said and who he'd said it to, and proceed to bang his head against the coffee table, leaving several leaf-shaped imprints in it.


	7. Chapter 7

Iruka-sensei had flat out told Naruto he wouldn't teach him anything until he could pass every test the class had been given that year with at least an A. Naruto'd already promised Alastor that he'd re-read all the text books, so he'd started with the text from the first year (which was thankfully short) and then started through the rest of them. It was pretty dull, but now he was actually reading the books the tests turned out to be really easy, and Naruto was actually feeling kind of stupid for doing so badly. So far, the first book (titled My Happy Village) had turned out to be the most helpful, with a lot of information that Naruto had missed out on the first time around, like the major bloodlines. Most of the information was pretty basic, but it finally explained why that quiet girl was so freaked out by him – she could see the demon inside of him with her super-eyes. The whole thing was pretty depressing, which was why Naruto tried to avoid thinking too much, it just made you sad all the time. Look at Shikamaru, he was thinking all the time, and it made him so depressed he could barely move.

Naruto resolved not to let the whole thing screw with his head, and set off for the Genin team assignments in a good mood, focusing on his cool new jutsu, his mad reading skilz and his awesome new summons (even if most of them were kind of nuts). His latest was a dog that Naruto figured had to be called Patches, 'cause it really looked like he was made from all kinds of dogs. Literally, you could see where they'd all been stitched together. He even had two tails, which Naruto figured wasn't as good as three heads, but still fairly cool. Iruka-sensei had looked pretty creeped out by the mutt, and had muttered something like that sounded like 'Orochimaru' and 'spare parts', so Naruto figured that Kiba would be even more freaked out. Plus he was really friendly, and happy to play fetch. He was really good at playing dead too.

Naruto got to the academy early, and gave Iruka sensei back the tests he'd finished that night. Sensei looked kind of rough.

"Well, it's been a long few days, there's been a lot of argument about the team assignments, there always is."

"Can you..."

"No, you can wait an hour like everybody else." Iruka sensei looked worried for a minute "Naruto, you may not be…perfectly satisfied with your team, but believe me, there's a good reason for it."

"This is going to suck isn't it?"

"I'm hopeful things will work out. You've really done well this past week, your handwriting, use of vocabulary and reading comprehension have all noticeably improved." Naruto knew that Iruka-sensei was trying to distract him a bit, but it was still really nice to hear. He didn't get many complements, so each one meant a lot to him.

"Um, thanks. I only have one and a half more books to go."

"Good for you, you're really working hard at this. You should get into class before you're late, and don't cause trouble with Sasuke."

"Iruka-sensei, would I do something like that? Or like undoing the bolts on the seats? Or like putting a snake in the desks? Or like-"

"Yes, yes, you're a menace to polite society, not that it isn't useful on occasion. Now shoo."

Naruto had been right that the team assignments had sucked. He'd wound up on a team with Sasuke-I'm-a-stuck-up-bastard, and Sakura-chan. And while the latter would have made up for things a week ago, she'd hit him to get his seat, knocking him into the bastard, and had then beaten him up for touching her precious darling. At this point, Patches had started snarling at her, and she'd started screaming about what a revolting, vicious dog he was, so Naruto had started yelling back about how he was a good dog, and how Sakura had no right to be mean to him. That was the point that Iruka-sensei walked in.

Iruka-sensei had just given him this look, and even if Naruto hadn't been the one to start the whole thing he felt pretty guilty, so he just groaned into the desk when he'd found out who his teammates were. Even worse, after he'd found out he was stuck with those two, and the rest of the teams had gone off, their sensei had never showed. Iruka had left eventually to go do more paperwork, though they'd already agreed to meet up for dinner. It wasn't like Naruto wanted to talk to either of his teammates, so he took out the previous year's text and started in on chapter 8, which was about the ninja that didn't take missions, and what their duties were. This included the guards for the feudal lord or Daimyo, people doing infiltration stuff, administration, mapmakers, medic-nin, the interrogation department and so on. It was actually pretty interesting, and working as a messenger nin, travelling through the elemental countries, meeting all kinds of people and bringing them stuff sounded fun. After spending a while lost in daydreams about being the coolest messenger in the history books, Naruto started filling out the test on that chapter that Iruka had given him. At this point Sakura-chan spoke up.

"Good grief, is that _last year's_ textbook? I can't believe it! You're so lame you're even going _backwards_. What's next, picture books? I bet Sasuke-kun could write that thing better then you can read it." Naruto glared at her, but he didn't want to make Iruka-sensei mad so he didn't say anything. He went back to his test, and when Sakura started up again, he just stood up, took his work and left the room, Patches' nails clicking on the polished wood of the floor behind him. He slid the classroom door shut, and leaned against it. He had to meet his new teacher, who was now over an hour late. Maybe he had a sudden super important mission. There was no way he was staying in that room though, which meant he needed someone to come fetch him. He looked at Patches who was drooling a bit on his leg and gazing up at him with doggy devotion. He didn't want to give up the dog for another summons who might not do what he asked anyway. Naruto abruptly remembered that there was another solution, he could make a shadow clone. Except then it would still be like he was there to be insulted. Unless…

As Naruto went out into the garden he could hear Sakura's shrill scream coming from the classroom. He supposed a headless clone was kind of creepy, especially considering the eyeballs in his fingertips.

* * *

"So, how did it go?" asked Iruka as Naruto joined him at the counter of the okonomiyaki stand.

"My teammates suck. And my sensei was _three hours late_. Oh, and he made fun of us. Oh, and tomorrow we might actually be failed as genin and sent back to the academy if we can't win a survival test against him. And this isn't even ramen for dinner. How was your day?"

"Well, you can't just eat ramen, if you want to be a strong ninja you need to eat other food too. As for your sensei, well he's got a bit of a reputation."

"What sort of a reputation?"

"Always being late, for one." Iruka sensei fiddled with his chopsticks.

"There's something else isn't there sensei?"

"Well, it's a matter of public record I suppose. Your sensei has been asked to take genin teams before, but he's always failed them." The two of them glumly pondered this information.

"Well, I guess I'm just going to have to be the first to pass ever, right? After all, I am Konoha's number one surprising ninja right?" Iruka gave him a big smile.

"That's an excellent attitude to have. I'm sure if you treat him as a serious opponent and work hard you'll do well. I…also have some other information which I believe you don't."

"So what is it?"

"The problem is, I think if I tell you, it makes you more likely to fail the test tomorrow." Naruto pondered this for a bit as the food arrived.

"Is the information going to go bad or something?"

"No, it's not going to become invalid."

"Okay, so just tell me tomorrow. After you treat me to ramen for passing. Or the old man does, 'cause I won his bet. Oh, and I dropped off the rest of last-years tests in your mailbox."

"And how was that?"

"Creepy. I hate the teachers room, everyone is always staring at me."

"I expect they're trying to keep you from, for example, painting the floor with industrial grade epoxy."

"Pft, like they could. You were the only sensei who ever caught me anyway. Besides, I'd pick something different next time." Iruka stared at him. "Oh, and I don't do stuff like that anymore anyways." Naruto took a bite of okonomiyaki. "I guess this stuff is okay. Why do you like it?" Iruka sensei smiled

"I like the way the flakes on top move, it's like they're twitching"

"Weirdo."

* * *

Naruto pondered Iruka's advice. Iruka sensei didn't want to tell him stuff straight out, but the textbooks had said a lot about ninja not just believing what they were told, but checking it and having lots of sources of information too. And how you could take information about one thing and get hints about other stuff. Iruka-sensei had said two things which had stuck in his mind. Firstly, he'd said to treat Kakashi-sensei like a serious opponent. Not to work hard or try his best.

Naruto had only ever fought one serious opponent, and that was Mizuki-sensei. So he figured Iruka was telling him to use summons. The other sentence that kept running through his mind was 'a matter of public record'. If there was a record that had information like who'd been passed and failed, then what other information was out there, and where was it?

Even Naruto wasn't optimistic enough to think that there'd be a list of a Jounin's weak points open to the public, but there ought to be something. Even likes and dislikes would be helpful. Although, thinking back to the meeting with the man, he hadn't even given up that information. Compared to the stuff Naruto had blurted out…if this Kakashi guy had said what Naruto had, about liking ramen and Iruka-sensei, Naruto would have packed a bunch of bowls of ramen and practised his Iruka-sensei transformation just in case. Plus brought the laxatives. Although poisoning ramen would probably make his brain explode or something.

The public registry of shinobi just had some really basic information on the guy, his name, a nickname of 'Sharingan Kakashi' or 'the Copy ninja', which was weird because the textbook said that Sasuke was the only one from that family left. Maybe it meant he was super good at imitating people? It had the dates of graduation and granting of Jounin rank. Finally, it had a note of commonly known information, which told Naruto that the new guy had a contract – one for dogs.

Fortunately the library was open late. Over the course of the evening, Naruto looked up summoning contracts, dogs and the war with Iwa, which told him that he'd be fighting someone with a really serious skill level. He had a short panic attack, before deciding that if there was nothing else he could find on his opponent, he should come up with some ideas on his own tactics. So he looked up shadow clones, and found several mentions of them. In spite of being on the forbidden scroll, they seemed to be widely known. It turned out the reason the jutsu was so dangerous was the same reason it was so simple; you decided how many clones you wanted and the jutsu did the rest. If you decided you wanted five, and that took enough chakra to kill you, well too bad. And the jutsu took a lot of chakra. The note that Naruto found said that even making one would probably kill anyone below jounin. There was even a list of jutsu that could be used to compare chakra levels against the shadow clone technique. Naruto gathered that with most jutsu, if you did too much, it would sort of run out and then you'd pass out, but probably not die.

Except that the numbers didn't match up. The books said that making one kage bunshin needed a lot of chakra, even more than some Jounin could generate, but Naruto had made over ten when he'd been learning the jutsu, and done it a bunch of times. Iruka-sensei had said that Naruto had 'a prodigious amount of chakra' which meant a shitload. Looking at this was making him think it was less 'a shitload' and more 'a whole lot of shitloads'. Of course Iruka-sensei had been talking about the summoning the three headed dog. If Kakashi was a dog summoner, then that might freak him out. Or maybe he'd find that easier to fight. Iruka had been freaked out when Naruto had shown he could summon more than one type of thing, so that would probably surprise Kakashi.

_The long and short of it is, there's no way I'm going to take this guy in a straight fight. I have to surprise him._ Fortunately, surprises were Naruto's specialty.

* * *

The next morning Naruto was running to the bridge and wishing he was a little worse at surprising himself. He'd sure been shocked when he'd seen the stupid alarm clock and realised he'd overslept, his head whirling with half-baked plans.

When he'd arrived at the meeting point he was surprised to see Sakura and the bastard, but no teacher. Surprised and incredibly relieved.

"Naruto, you're late" screeched Sakura.

"Not as late as our sensei I guess. Looks like there's an upside to him being a tardy bastard."

"You shouldn't talk about our sensei like that."

"…are you saying he's not a tardy bastard?"

"It's still disrespectful. Hmf, it figures that someone like you would have no manners."

"Someone like me?" The words seemed to stick in his throat. If Sakura knew about the demon, who else did?

"Someone with no parents to teach them proper manners." Naruto felt a huge surge or relief that she didn't know. And a whole lot of anger that she'd brought up something so important in such a petty way.

"So what's your excuse?" Sakura frowned

"For what"

"You've got parents, but you hit people, scream at them and make fun of me for being an orphan."

"NARUTO, HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!"

"See, there you are screeching at me again. You're acting like a gorilla with a stick up it's ass." Sasuke laughed. It was barely a huff of air, but they both heard it. Sakura's eyes filled with tears.

"Sasuke-kun" she said reaching for him. Sasuke ducked away from her hand and sauntered into the woods.

"Call me when the test starts" he said over his shoulder. Sakura whirled around to take things out on Naruto, but he'd taken off and left behind another one of his distorted clones, this one was mostly a ball of arms that groped around blindly. Finding herself deprived of a target for her anger she let out a scream of pure rage that could be heard for miles.

* * *

It was twenty minutes into the test, and Naruto knew without a doubt that he was out of his depth. Kakashi the super ninja jerk had ripped through his bunshin like tissue paper, and the three headed dog hadn't even slowed him down. He'd tossed a bunch of kunai at it and the poor thing had vanished with a whimper. Naruto felt seriously bad about that and resolved to protect his summons more.

The only high point had come when Kakashi sensei had distracted him and it looked like the man was actually planning to shove a pair of fingers up Naruto's ass. What the hell kind of pervert was he anyway? Naruto had summoned desperately, trying to call something that could protect his ass (literally). He'd gotten a shiny metal suit of armour to appear between the two of them. And Kakashi-pervert had actually busted his fingers against it; Naruto had heard the crunch of the bone breaking. And then the suit of armour had raised a big ass sword and tried to slice Kakashi up. It was pretty slow so Naruto had unsummoned it as soon as he'd made it to the forest cover. On the downside, Kakashi was now in a pisser of a mood. Naruto had heard Sakura scream, and this time it wasn't out of anger.

His conscience had started nagging at him, what if Kakashi had actually hurt her? Anyone who would shove fingers up a kid's ass was obviously not someone to turn your back on. So he started slogging his way through the bushes as quietly as he could. He found her passed out, and dragged her deeper into cover before trying to wake her up. As soon as she opened her eyes though, she started asking for Sasuke again and making fun of him.

"Look Sakura, I know our chances are lousy, I'm just saying that if we work together, maybe we can pull something off. Maybe you know some sort of trick that I can use my clones to pull off?"

"I see what you're up to, you're trying to distract me so you can get the bells for yourself. Well you can just forget about it. Sasuke kun will get the bells and share them with me. You can just go back to the academy and _rot._" Naruto sat there stunned as she stormed off, not by her answer but because it had made him recall something he'd read over and over. Genin teams had three people, never two. If one person died or got promoted, the holes were filled by others. It didn't make sense for only two people to pass this test. The whole thing with the bells was just a trick. Which meant that this was part of the test too.

"It's all a trick, the whole damn thing. There's no way we can beat a jounin, he's just turning up the pressure and seeing if we panic or keep trying." And here he was, stuck on a team with the two people in the whole class least likely to cooperate. "Well shit."

* * *

"So then I was the one who got tied to the post in the center of the clearing and didn't get any lunch. Never mind that I'm the guy who actually figured out what the test was about, _and _broke his ass-poking fingers, which I figure is like a public service." Iruka shook his head in disbelief

"I'd heard some stories about Kakashi's reputation, but that's really extreme." Sitting beside them, the Hokage Hmmed.

"And yet you seem to have impressed him"

"I dunno, he said we passed, but that was only because Sasuke bastard let me loose from the log. I hope he's a decent teacher. Hey, Iruka-sensei, what was that information you had earlier?"

"Can you guess? Think back to the forms you filed earlier this week."

"…I was already a genin, wasn't I? Crap, I could have given that whole thing a miss." The Hokage gave Iruka a serious look.

"In any case you required an instructor of that level. I have to head back to the office now, so please enjoy the fruits of your labour" With that, he set a series of ramen gift certificates on the counter, put his hat on and left.

"One way or another, you seem to have made it, so congratulations. Things are going to get tougher from here on in."

"Pft, if things got easy all of a sudden my head would probably explode. Can you do me a favour?"

"Depends what it is."

"I need a really big bottle of really strong booze."

"You know, most ninja don't start the heavy drinking until at least chunin rank."

"No, it's for the blue guys. I sent them to say thank you Kakashi-sensei for all the exercise this morning."

Across town the smoke had already started to billow from Kakashi's apartment window.

THE END (for now)


	8. Chapter 8

Several weeks later on a half completed bridge in wave country…

Momochi Zabuza, one of the seven swordsmen of bloody mist snarled as he locked blades with Sharingan Kakashi

"I'm going to get you for this Kakashi, and your little dogs too"

"If you're referring to my students, I prefer to think of them as monkeys." From the landing of the bridge, Sakura screeched in fury and bounced a small boulder off Haku's ice prison. "Or maybe gorillas would be more appropriate." Kakashi darted backwards to avoid a gut-slash.

"I'm going to take that orange nuisance and peel off his face until he tells me where those miserable blue annoyances took my kubi kiri houcho. This miserable katana is no substitute"

"Good luck with that one, it's been three months and I still haven't seen my porn." Zabuza shot a glance at the action inside the ice prison.

"What the hell were those things anyway?"

"Hm, I'm not the sort to chat about a comrade's skills. Besides, that's not what you really have to worry about."

"Oh, copy nin, are you going to show me something impressive?"

Across the bridge came some more shouting and the chakra surge that accompanied one of Naruto's more serious summons and a crash as the ice prison was pushed apart from the inside. Kakashi had his back to that area, but he watched Zabuza's eyes move _up_ which was never a good sign. The bridge shook slightly, then did it again, and Kakashi tried to persuade himself he wasn't feeling footsteps shake the foundations.

"…Is that a house? Standing on giant chicken feet?" He shifted to focus on Kakashi again. "What the hell kind of freak summons does he have?"

Several weeks after that.

"So it turned out that this gato guy wanted to keep Tazuna from finishing his bridge, 'cause then people could get real jobs and stuff. Anyway I wanted him to promise to pay back the price of the real mission level after, but he said he couldn't, so I made him promise to let Konoha ninja cross for free forever, although I'm not sure it's worth anything."

"It's something anyway. It's quite common for people to lie about the difficulty of the mission and leave it up to the ninja to take up the slack or get killed trying. It's foolish, but desperate or greedy people make poor decisions"

"So anyway after tweedle dee and tweedle dum attacked, me an' Sasuke took care of them pretty good. And then later this guy with no eyebrows threw a HUGE sword at us, being all dramatic, except I remembered what you said about standing around talking and being all 'look at me' so told the blue guys they could have it. They say they're called 'pikutse' by the way. They were kind of neat after they stopped trying to head-butt me."

"Are they interesting to talk to?"

"Not so much, I mean it's all about booze and fighting with them. They did say something interesting though, they think they're dead. I mean, they think this is heaven." Iruka had heard this world called a lot of things but that was a new one. "I mean, there's stuff for them to fight, and stuff to drink, and that seems to be enough for them."

"If this is heaven, did they say what the previous life was like?"

"There was something about paperwork, but they got pretty upset so I dropped it."

* * *

So the grand reveal; All of the summons are items associated with death magic.

1. Alastair, the sorting hat, from HP. As revealed in the beginning, a voluntary human sacrifice

2. Cerberus; guardian of the underworld, from classical mythology

3. Death's horse, possibly named Binky, from Diskworld

4. Scorpion; Egyptian magical artefact powered by human sacrifice, from the mummy.

5. Will-o'-the wisp; residue of a death in a swamp (like a very weak ghost) which lures travellers to drown in swamps and feeds on them, from folk tales.

6. Pictsies; the wee free men. Highly dangerous. Also convinced they are dead, and in heaven. Incidentally, they happen to be correct. Also Diskworld.

7. Patches, admittedly I'm reaching a bit with this one, but I figure at least half of him has to have been dead at some point.

8. Animated armor; a fairly common outcome of the witch vs knight matchup.

9. Baba Yaga's hut. Animated with death magic. It's said the fence around here house was made of human bones. From folk tales.

* * *

It's possible I may decide to add more later, but as far as I'm concerned this story is now complete. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.


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